


Loss is but Change

by neko_chelle (fivefootnothing)



Category: Claymore
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:45:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivefootnothing/pseuds/neko_chelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Galatea's final day of sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss is but Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magicnoire](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=magicnoire).



 

 

She allows herself one final sunrise, one final view of the sacred city. Rabona, all marble and ivory, gleams as it catches the first rays of morning sun. A city of purity, free of Yoma and protected by the colossal outside walls and the untainted faith of the holy. Silvery spires strain to reach the skies. The city itself is a testament to humanity, to the lowly and weak beings of bone and blood who flee from the Yoma and cower in the shadows of the Claymores yet yearn for so much more. 

The city clings to existence, to a limping, earthly kind of beauty as it struggles to mirror Paradise. 

Beauty.

She will lose so much beauty!

Her weight subtly shifts as she unsheathes her blade, the weapon starved for blood. She dare not fight, for the mounds of Yoma dead in her wake would call undue attention to herself. She dare not fight, for unleashing her Yoki would alert the Organization to her location. She dare not fight, for her eyes would glint yellow and her teeth would sharpen to finely angled points. 

And then she shall start craving soft, tender, human flesh.

Too much ugliness existed in the world. She dare not add to it.

Her sword lifts, and she briefly meets the flat side with her cheek, concentrating on the sensation of cool metal against her prickling skin. She recalls brutal battles, her steely blade turned black, awash with gore and bile and sinew. The savaged remnants of Yoma dribbling down the hilt, coating her hands with blood. Vile. Monstrous. Ugly. 

And the smell! Acrid and stinging and cloying within her nostrils. Burning and sickly-sour like milk gone bad. 

Lose one sense, the others grow keener. Will her world (loathsome, unpalatable, ugly) be filtered completely through scent?

The last thing she ever sees is the glint of her own blade as she sweeps it across her eyes.

Darkness.

Her hand releases from the hilt, her weapon flung to the ground as she strains to touch her face. Sticky warmth drips from disfigured sockets. And it is agony. Unbidden, her Yoki lashes against the confines of her body, a caged animal roused into action and into rage. She struggles to suppress the monster within her. Veins tighten beneath her skin, threatening to pop free. She growls, bares her teeth, her mouth and jaw elongate into a near-muzzle. Her Yoki senses the surface, senses the sun and wind. And the scent, the very enticing scent of blood.

But the monster cannot see.

Driven near mad, the beast seeks to transform its prison.

Muscles swell, reform, and reshape. Tendons stretch impossibly long. Bones nearly burst through skin.

Not now.

Not here.

Focus.

Breathe.

She forces the air into her lungs. 

In. Out. 

In. Out. 

Remember who you are.

Her body shudders, shakes, bends back to normal. Her senses settle. Her mind returns.

Healing. She must center herself on the healing, use her Yoki as a tool to carefully knit her flesh back together. She cannot repair her sight. Eyes are impossible to restore. But she can shape the wound at will, and that act holds an elegance all its own. Her scar must be exquisite, delicate. Her eyes not pale, moonlightish silver, but instead useless white orbs. 

The problem lies in her Yoki. She often boasted of it. When released, hers was the most powerful of all the Claymores. It made her invaluable to the Organization. And yet, she became fettered to it. Her power became her leash. For if she released it, they could find her. But she understands subtlety. One cannot spy without first learning discretion. Her Yoki, now shackled, trickles free to help mend the gaping wound along her face. Mere blips of power, indistinguishable from the inelegant force released by a standard Yoma. 

So she sculpts the tear, mends tissue as easily as one takes needle and thread to cloth. Not a neat transformation but a necessary one, if she is to lay in hiding in Rabona. It will be simple to explain her silver hair, her cream-colored skin, the otherworldly way she carries herself. She is one of the holy, one of the faithful, fallen victim to the wiles of a Yoma. As a comfort, as a kindness, the Yoma who attacked her sensed her purity. Instead of raking its claws across her belly, the Yoma tore out her eyes, one by one, so that she would not bear witness to her own death. 

A Claymore dispatched the Yoma but arrived too late to save her sight, and the trauma caused her hair to go silver.

Galatea, the Organization's former Number Three, arrives in Rabona wrapped in nothing but filthy rags. The scar marring her face raw and still brown with encrusted blood. 

She collapses near the church.

***

"Sister Latea?"

Her head lifts, the fabric of her cowl slipping just enough for her cheeks to emerge from shadow, the ragged edges of her scar briefly visible in the morning sunlight. She notes much in the voice uttering those two words. A boy, speaking through tightened lips, a tremor of laughter from his throat. He's smiling.

"Henri," she whispers low, her voice warm and soothing and soft. 

"Will you be joining us for mass today?" 

She cannot refuse. Insistent, tiny-fingered hands grasp at her wrists. The boy's palm is sticky with juice. He's been around the berry patches again, sneaking in a quick snack after breakfast. 

She rises to her feet, the boy jerking eagerly at her like a dog on a leash. She allows him full control of their path, though the quiet rustle of wind through the ivy tells her they're traversing the shortcut into the church. "You were watching me for a long time, Henri."

The boy's cheeks redden, and he gives silent thanks that Sister Latea cannot see. "You always head outside before anyone else, even when it's cold."

"I must greet each new day as it comes."

"But you can't...see the sun anymore." Henri's nose wrinkles. He hopes the sister isn't offended. "Do you miss the sunrise?" 

"Yes." She feels her lips tug into a grin. "But we are all blessed with gifts of beauty in a great many things besides what we can sense with our own eyes. Remember, Henri. Faith is believing in that which we cannot see."

"As long as you believe the sun is going to rise, it will rise?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"So, if I believe you'll always be around, you won't ever leave?"

"I cannot promise that, little Henri. Nothing is forever. But I am here now, with you."

"I'm glad."

For beauty, though fleeting, comes in things as undemanding as a child's touch or in the rays of the morning sun. 

 


End file.
